


Calm Down

by Path



Category: Homestuck, MS Paint Adventures
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-12-06
Updated: 2011-12-06
Packaged: 2017-10-27 00:22:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,091
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/289525
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Path/pseuds/Path
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Maybe Boxcars and Deuce will sit idly by and let Spades Slick rant for hours about their shortcomings. But Diamonds Droog isn't the same stock, and he's happy to remind Slick that he's got better things to do.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Calm Down

**Author's Note:**

  * For [dreadelion](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=dreadelion).



> Merry Christmas, Dread~

He's really gotten into it now, and Diamonds Droog regards it with weariness. The only words emerging from Spades Slick's mouth are either filthy curses or needlessly elaborate insults, and it's veering more towards the unrepeatable slurs the longer he goes on for. His shoulders are hunched in some porcupine-like measure of offensive defense, his eyes are blazing, and he's taken to pacing around the hideout, stalking around the plan table and punctuating with abrupt turns.

Droog waits, and watches. He is excellent at both, but he is actually beginning to get a little tired of having to. Slick's tantrums have long since lost any effect they might have once had. Droog was unflappable to begin with, though, so he's had a long history of smoking quietly and occasionally tossing in an agreement or disagreement to hurry it all along.

It goes quicker, he finds, when Hearts and Deuce are present. Slick might lay into Droog with the vehemence and vociferous cruelty he's using now, but it's directed at all of them, at the Crew as a whole, not at Droog himself.

Droog is not a man who likes to sit back and listen to his own failings. Even less does he enjoy sitting back and listening to what someone else seems to believe they are. Perhaps he isn't to be blamed for snapping. Diamonds Droog doesn't snap easily. But given the amount of tension he can absorb, it's not surprising how much it can sting when it does come.

He stands slowly, approaches entirely unnoticed by Slick, whose mouth is still full of swearing and sharp-toothed angry laughter. Droog's footsteps fall like a cat's, and he shakes his shoulder loose in a smooth gesture with no crack of disuse. The only sounds come from Slick, when Droog's arm wraps around his throat, closing suddenly to cinch the shorter man closer.

Slick screeches, struggles. His hand claws over his shoulder, going for the eyes, but Droog is ready, and catches the wrist to pin it behind Slick's head. It's really astonishing how little effort he requires. Then Slick's left fighting, grabbing for a knife he can't quite reach on his opposite hip.

He spews filth, though it emerges choked and twisted. "Fuck you, liar, traitor, scum, fucking... freak get your hands off m- let me out, stupid backstabbing fuck lemme go-"

Droog just smiles, close enough to Slick's ear for the restrained man to hear the low chuckle he gives. "Slick," he says, soft under Slick's ranting diatribe, "calm down."

"Calm down?" Slick repeats it, incredulous. " _Calm down_ , you son of a bitch, traitor, assshole, take your eyes out you motherfucking-" Then he's wrestling again, feet scuffling for some leverage, hand pulling ineffectually at Droog's arm.

Repeat. There's few points Droog needs to illustrate; Slick is a dangerous man, a demon in a fight, but off his guard, without his tools, with little air and one arm to work with, Droog can deal with him easily. It takes more times than it would with any other being in the world for Slick to actually come to terms with it. If there's one thing he's really good at, Droog reflects while his leader strains to get his fingers into Droog's eye sockets, it's not even fighting. It's being stubborn long past sense.

Eventually, though, with a little more pressure, a miniscule and calculated adjustment of the angle of his arm, Droog can feel him tire. Violet-black spots will be blooming in Slick's eyes and his limbs will be heavy and tingling. Slick lets out a cry that gets strangled as efficiently as he is, and stops. He's waiting to see what Droog'll do, waiting now to see if he'll keep going or...

He probably has no other ideas. He just wants to see why he's paused. Droog'd bet his share of the last heist and more that Slick thinks he's planning on actually killing him here. (That's laughable. If Droog wanted Slick dead, it would either be instantaneous and Slick would never know, or it would take so long as to be extremely and excruciatingly obvious what he planned. Droog does not do things by halves.)

"Good," murmurs Droog in his ear. "Now, was there something else you wanted to say?"

"...die in a fire," whispers Slick, but he doesn't begin struggling again.

Droog considers. He hadn't really thought this through before, but now he finds himself wanting to push Slick, force him to ask for release. But really, this is probably the closest he'll get to it without beginning something far more involved, and not at all what he was trying to actually accomplish today. It was just supposed to be a flex of power, the reminder that while Boxcars and Deuce might follow blindly, Droog isn't of the same stock. Just a reminder that Droog has better things to do than listen to Slick's meaningless complaints.

So he could keep going. He could push it. Tighten the hold around his windpipe until Slick gags and, soon, passes out. Get him in a grapple on the floor, face down with his arms twisted into his back, stripped of his knives. One within sight, not within reach, and several within reach, but not within sight- Droog's to use, if he feels like it.

The thought is undeniably tempting. But that's not the goal. So, "I guess that'll do," he says softly, and releases the lock, stepping back. Slick stumbles out, gasping, hands rushing to the knives strapped to his hip and leg. When he turns, his eyes are wide, his face red, and his expression not entirely one of rage. There's the rare breed of actual fear in Slick's face, and Droog feels the knowledge of it slide between his ribs and settle in his chest.

Droog just picks up his paper, where he was when Slick came in ranting in the first place. Slick almost leaps for him, but a pointed look from Droog stops him in his tracks. "Done?" Droog asks.

There's a long pause. Slick's hands tighten on his knives. "...yeah," he says at last, though, and sheathes them, stalking away without fully turning his back.

It won't be that long before he builds it up again, and releases his outrage in the same torrential diatribe. Maybe he shouldn't pull this in front of Boxcars and Deuce. But for himself, at least, if it doesn't prevent Slick's wrath, it will at least stop it when it does emerge.

Droog smiles his razor-cut smile, and goes back to his paper.


End file.
